blame it on the stardust
by allwritenow
Summary: A doppelganger is more than a sacrifice, more than the echo of a spell, more than a copy of a copy of a copy of a person. Elena is more than a pretty face and a kind heart. They all were. They always will be.
1. Chapter 1

Elena Gilbert's first word was love.

Unfortunately, as it was spoken in Third Period Middle Bulgarian, her modern English speaking parents thought it was simply baby babble and clapped encouragingly but ignorantly for her attempt. Miranda Gilbert carefully enunciated the word Mama, Grayson tried to insist on Papa, and Elena kept repeating любов and giggling.

She did, eventually, say Mama and then Papa and other English words, but she favored Bulgarian for expressions of affection and frustration. When she wanted Caroline Forbes to share her legos, the demand came out in ancient Norse. At six, the family cat died and Elena sobbed out broken words in a form of Greek so old there were no records left.

Other languages slipped out, from lives lived by women who shared her face and found more peace than she was destined to receive, but those three were her constant. By twelve she'd learned to hide her fluency in languages she could not explain knowing, and how to avoid trouble by swearing exclusively in everything but English.

She'd also learned to hide the magic that sparked beneath her skin. The way that sometimes her exclamations in Bulgarian weren't just words but spells, the way she had to be careful when she cursed in Greek that the words stayed empty, no vicious intent to stick and linger in the world.

No one seemed to notice the way small bruises and scrapes and other signs of childhood mischief healed with miraculous quickness for her, her brother, and her friends. Or the way her favorite stuffed moose never stopped being as silky soft as the day it was purchased. The plants in their yard bloomed and thrived, though neither Miranda nor Grayson had a green thumb, and butterflies had an odd fascination for the young girl, landing on her outstretched palms without a quiver of hesitation.

Sheila Bennett's sharp eyes had seen the truth, but the child didn't have enough power to be dangerous to anyone but herself and seemed to understand the risk of over-extending herself. She kept an eye on her, as she did on all of Bonnie's friends, but otherwise left it alone. She was not her ancestor, exerting herself and her magic for the favor of a Gilbert. Bonnie and the balance, those were her charges and to them she would be true.

From age five on, Elena drew face after face, all of them hers. Her parents dutifully hung them all up on the fridge with her little brother's scribbles, amused by their child's apparent fascination with her own looks and glad that her actions didn't reflect such narcissism. They didn't know, couldn't know, that none of those faces were Elena. That they had other names in other tongues, Katerina, Anne, Miriam, Tatia, Helen, Rhea, Amara. That she studied them all, looking for differences, remembering their stories, holding close these women who the world would lump into one being—a convenient shape for powerful blood.

An old soul, adults called her, struck by the kindness and wisdom that shone in those large, dark eyes. They didn't get to see the rage she screamed into her pillow at night, the grief that spilled out in endless sobs in the shower, the hope and resentment that filled the pages of her diaries.

Katerina, Anne, Miriam, Tatia, Helen, Rhea, Amara. Her mantra, her fear, her future. At fifteen her and Caroline and Bonnie drove three towns over, where no one knew their famous founder names, and she got them tattooed in a circle around her left ankle, easy to hide under socks and sneakers or the silver anklet Aunt Jenna got her when she turned thirteen. It was a memorial to those who came before—their lives, their choices, their personhood hers to keep and guard.

She also got a bird behind her ear, small and free, to show the other girls as she admired the flower on Caroline's collar bone and the constellation on Bonnie's wrist. Every time she tucked her hair behind her ear, her thumb brushed over the bird, a reminder, a reassurance. Her life was her choice, even if her face was not.

When not having someone else's art inked into her skin, she still drew her face, not her face, in endless sketchbooks. She drew other faces too, ones from her dreams, their memories. She never wrote names on them, and some she burned, gleaming eyes and sharp teeth that would drain her dry if they could. Others she lingered over, fond feelings for strangers curling in her chest—it was strange, to know someone you had never met, to remember the shape of their mouth as it thinned in anger or stretched in joy. Someday she might meet them, these not-strangers, and she needed to be prepared, to know which emotions were her own and which were theirs, the women who had come before. She was not them, would not be them, and she could not allow her heart to make the same mistakes.

Her and Jeremy spent hours together, quietly drawing on the front porch or in the backyard or on the dining room table while their parents shared pleased if baffled glances at this hobby their children shared. Jeremy preferred more diverse and esoteric subjects for his art, but they shared a love of fine pencils and thick paper and even if Jeremy thought his big sister's thing for drawing herself was weird, he appreciated her talent and her appreciation of his. Their parents were just happy their children had a balance for the inevitable moments of sibling friction.

Those fractious moments aside, and accounting for non-sibling related moments of human failure, it was undeniable that Elena was a good girl. A good daughter, a good student, a good friend, a dutiful founding family heir. Elena was also restless, the strength of her image—metaphorical and entirely literal, stifling her until she couldn't breathe for the weight of them. Elena wasn't just Elena, the girl Mystic Falls' parents liked to hold up as an example of model behavior, she was the latest in a line of powerful, pursued women whose blood had cost more lives than she could count.

On the days when the legacy running her veins burned the most she'd coax Bonnie and Caroline into ditching school and they'd drive until they felt like stopping, or wander through the woods outside town, drinking stolen whiskey and playing never have I ever or dare. Never truth, too boring according to Caroline and too confusing for Elena, whose truths weren't all her own.

Bonnie was the secret queen of dare, offering up the most creative and risky endeavors and always following through on her own. Caroline could talk anyone out of anything and was more useful than a fake ID for getting them into clubs and college parties. Elena was fearless, or rather, her fears were so far beyond social consequences and detention that to the others she seemed invincible. They shared secrets, squabbled over crushes and fashion choices, kissed a few times while working through whether they liked girls or boys or both or neither, and always had each others backs. They were unstoppable, as fierce in their love for each other as they were in their desire for adolescent adventure.

They were unstoppable until they weren't. Unstoppable until a night when restless rage burned through Elena, when fate felt like it was wrapping its hands around her throat, all the women who had born her face crowding in until she wanted to scream. She partied and she fought and on the drive home not her fate, not her memories, not her magic, nothing could save them from the fall, from the water, from the way everything went black.

She woke up in the hospital, pale and bruised and parentless. Jeremy was asleep in the chair next to the bed, bruises under his eyes to match the ones on her body, and grief weighing down his newly tall frame. Aunt Jenna was pacing in the hallway outside, speaking in rapid fire on her cell phone, snatches of legalese drifting through the crack in the door.

The look on her brother's face when he saw her owlish blinking told her all she needed to know and by the time Jenna made it back into the room they were collapsed into each other on the hospital bed, shaking with quiet, broken sobs.

Jenna wrapped her arms around them, trying to hold in her own tears and her terror, to be the supportive guardian they needed. The future stretched before all of them, strange and empty, and the present ached with guilt and loss.

In the darkened room next door, someone lurked, listening to their tears and thumping hearts. Elena had been seen. Elena had been _recognized_ and everything would be different now.

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1\. любов is not in Third Period Middle Bulgarian, it's modern Bulgarian, but the only reliable source I could find for Third Period Middle Bulgarian required me to buy a book and I do not care that much about accuracy.

2\. Title is from Hymn by Kesha


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Hi. Canon Damon Salvatore is a rapist and never should have been a valid love interest. If that sentence upsets you, some of this chapter might not be your cup of tea.

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Elena stared at herself in the mirror, the shadows under her eyes long since covered by makeup and the exhaustion in her bones hidden by the curve of her smile. She knew better than most what time healed and what it didn't. Her grief was far from spent, but life didn't stop, not for anyone.

Turning away from the mirror, she tucked the journal in her bag and headed down the stairs for the requisite stilted morning banter with Jenna and Jeremy. Jenna was frantic and Jeremy was sullen and she refused to let her heavy heart weigh them down. She acted as explicitly normal as possible—fake it till you make it—and filled a travel mug of coffee for herself and Jeremy without comment, earning a reluctant smile.

"Ride?" she asked him after Jenna had left, and didn't argue when he shook his head, ignoring the itch in her hands that wanted to drag him close and hold on until he broke down and cried like he hadn't since they left the hospital. Instead she flicked his ear, hid a grin at his scowl, and went to wait on the porch for Bonnie.

Her friend's smile was still careful around the edges, hidden worry in her eyes that Elena forced herself not to grimace at. Bonnie loved her, of course she was worried. Elena loved her back and she wouldn't begrudge that concern. She returned Bonnie's hug and held herself to the present by sheer force of will as Bonnie told her all about her Grams and their ancestors and her apparent psychic powers.

Elena knew what Bonnie was, knew the magic and potential, far greater than her own, that lurked inside her friend. She was prepared for this conversation, ready to be supportive and excited by turns. She was not prepared for the crow that slammed into the windshield, the spike of fear and unease that lingered.

She was not prepared for the handsome, chiseled face of Stefan Salvatore staring at her from across the hallway.

Her throat closed and her heartbeat tripled in pace and she knew he heard it, knew his senses, so much more than advanced than hers, could detect the effects of shock and panic and secret thrill of delight on her system. Her lips were numb as she agreed with Bonnie's assessment of his hotness and listened to her friend's theories on who he was. What was he doing here? Who did he think _she_ was?

Katerina had never spilled her secrets to him, had told him only what would make him love her, true or not. He knew nothing of doppelgangers and curses, of endless flight from brutal monsters until you became one yourself. Or he hadn't, but then, her memories of him were incomplete, second-hand, filtered through Katerina, and over a century old.

The fear and confusion and sense of strained reality lingered throughout the day, enforced by the weight of his focused attention and broken only by her worries about Jeremy, Bonnie's predictions, and Caroline's forced cheerfulness. She didn't follow through with her weekly visit to her parents' graves after school and instead dug out the journals and sketches hidden beneath the floorboards under her bed, pouring over fragments of dreams and flashes of memories not hers as she scrambled for a sense of control in a world gone spinning off course.

She hadn't thought she'd be lucky enough to go unnoticed forever. To have a life free of the supernatural other than her own magic and Bonnie's inevitable awakening to the powerful witch she was meant to be. Not when she'd been unlucky enough to be born in the same town Katerina had fled to, the land where Tatia had once lived. But she wasn't ready, and she hadn't expected this. One of the brothers Katerina had seduced and fallen for and left behind. And if one was here, where was the other? Did he still live as well?

They seemed decent enough, in the bits and pieces of memories she had to go on, one more kind and one more sharp but both very human and very in love with Katerina. What would that betrayal, the loss of their humanity, and a century and a half of immortality have done to their natures? She couldn't trust that her memories or her face would keep her safe, much less her loved ones.

Elena wasn't just a doppelganger. She was a Gilbert and she knew what her ancestors had done to protect themselves from vampires, knew the secrets that lived in her purely human family tree, had suspicions about her Uncle's oddly nomadic life.

Elena had been ingesting vervain since she was old enough to be trusted alone in the backyard, enabling her to cultivate a hidden little garden. She regularly dosed her brother and her friends and had become the unofficial punch spiker for school dances specifically so she could slip some in with the booze. Cheerleading and daily runs in the woods kept her fit and stronger than she looked. She knew Mystic Falls, knew the land it had been long before the town itself, could see the bones of what it had been during the Civil War beneath the modern structures. Her magic was limited in power, the curse of her bloodline, but she had centuries of knowledge to draw on in how best to use it. And she knew vampires, knew them as well as any human ever could.

She didn't want to hurt anyone. Never wanted to kill anyone, even if it wasn't their first death. But she and Katerina shared more than just a face, and if it meant protecting her family or her friends, she would do what she had to do.

Including going to a party by the falls when it was the last thing on her mind. She used to be good at parties. Used to _be_ the party, her and Caroline and Bonnie. School wasn't like Mean Girls, even in a status-obsessed small town like theirs. Outside of Founder events, no one cared about your last name. But they were cheerleaders and for a certain limited definition that mostly existed in Caroline's head in a teen movie montage sort of way, they could have been said to rule the school.

And then her parents died and the legacy in her blood smacked her in the face with an only kind of dead boy and now she was drinking shitty beer laced with vervain and faking an engaged conversation and a smile so wide her cheeks hurt directed at whoever was next to her whenever Stefan looked her way. He had clearly not gotten the memo about her strong desire to avoid any significant interaction with him and his gaze prickled against her skin.

Later she would curse herself for her inattention, for her _selfishness_. If she'd been less concerned with avoiding an awkward and potentially dangerous conversation with Katerina's ex, if she'd been more concerned with the danger to everyone else, oblivious innocents with no idea of the danger lurking in their midst, maybe Vickyi wouldn't have been bitten.

When she heard the scream, followed by the unmistakable sound of Jeremy's voice shouting, her heart stopped in her chest, terrified that she was going to lose him. But he was fine, holding up a rapidly-sobering Vicky. Matt's sister was bleeding from a wound in her throat, eyes glassy and hands fluttering wildly as she mumbled, barely audible over the commotion of the party. "What the hell?! What the hell."

"What happened?" Matt demanded before Elena could, eyes darting between his sister and Jeremy as he pulled Vicky away from the other boy.

"I don't know, man, I just found her like this. I know Tyler was giving her grief earlier, but I don't think he'd do this."

Elena stepped closer, wrapping an arm around Jeremy's as Matt turned to his sister just as she checked back into reality. "Mattie? This guy, he, he bit me, Mattie! I think he was on drugs or something? He bit me and then he got really angry and said something about me being dosed and then he ran off."

Jeremy flinched against Elena and she grimly hoped that this horrible night would get him to stop stealing her pain medication. "You should get her to the hospital, Matt. Human mouths have a lot of disgusting germs in them," she told him, completely serious and also hoping that Vicky's accusation of drugs and her own words were enough to keep anyone from digging deeper.

Matt nodded, still scowling at Jeremy, and Tyler who had joined the circle of drunken students watching the drama unfold, and started pulling Vicky toward the parking lot. Elena caught Stefan watching her again and narrowed her eyes. "Go home, Jeremy, I'll meet you there. Caroline's mom will probably want to talk to you, see if you saw anything that might help them ID the guy, and you need to sober up first."

He shrugged her off, but didn't argue, and she took it as a win as she stalked toward Katerina's ex, giving in to the inevitable. "I know you didn't do this," she told him, before he could speak, and ignored the way his eyes widened, leaning closer to ensure only he could hear the deadly intent of her next words. "But if you brought someone with you who did, Damon or anyone else, you need to get them out of my town. Mystic Falls is not welcoming to any vampires who feed without consent."

She didn't wait for his answer, if he had one, just turned and left, hoping to find Bonnie or Caroline to catch a ride from.

The next morning the news showed a very generic sketch, the reporter asking people to be on the lookout for non-local man on drugs who attacked people in the woods. Elena grimaced and didn't protest when Jenna turned it off, muttering something about an asshole ex who had a lot of nerve to warn people about other men instead of himself.

School was a mess. Jeremy didn't seem to be high, for once, but he was avoiding her and so was Caroline, for reasons Elena didn't understand. Stefan kept trying to get her alone, clearly wanting to know what she knew. She finally escaped with the end of day bell and took a moment to center herself in the bathroom, reaching out with her faint thread of magic.

It led her to the Grill, Caroline crying at a table as Bonnie awkwardly tried to comfort her. "How come he didn't go for me? Why do the guys I want never want me?"

"Oh Caroline, boys are dumb," Elena said, dropping next to Caroline in the booth. "So very dumb."

Caroline whirled on her. "It's easy for you to say that! You always say the right thing, I always say the wrong thing. I work so hard and got to know him and flirted and he still picked you."

"Stefan?" Elena asked, shocked and mad at herself for missing this. She'd missed too much lately and it needed to stop now. "Caroline, I'm not interested in him. He just won't leave me alone and I don't know why." She did know why, knew how much he'd loved the last woman to bear her face, but she could hardly explain that. And the rest of her statement stood.

Caroline, brilliant friend that she was, pivoted on a dime from heartbroken envy to protective rage. "Who does he think he is? God's gift to high school? If he doesn't leave you alone, we will _ruin_ him," she said furiously, already pulling out her phone to start the various text chains that would accomplish just that.

Elena laughed, pulling her in for a hug before she could hit send and roping Bonnie in too. "I love you. Can we save ruining for another day and have a sleepover tonight? I'm thinking rum floats and movies about talking pets."

Bonnie snorted and Caroline giggled a little wetly into Elena's shoulder before nodding, priorities realigning again. "Definitely. I just got some new gold face masks. We'll be the fanciest drunk girls in Mystic Falls."

Across the room, unnoticed by them all, Damon Salvatore reevaluated the usefulness of the blonde as a target and moved on to other strategies. Instead of the first of many nights of horrific trauma that would have lingered in the back of her mind for the rest of her life, Caroline went home with her two best friends and invented a drinking game based on how many animal-related puns were used in a given scene.

Elena fell asleep in a tangled pile with both her best friends, happiness sinking into her bones, warding off the grief and the fear that had been swallowing her. This was how it should be. This was how it _would_ be, and no vampire was going to ruin it.

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1\. Timelines, what are timelines? TVD's timeline was a MESS. So I am totally fine pretending that either Mean Girls aired before 2009 or my story starts after 2012.  
2\. I am ignoring the retcon of Damon meeting her first that was shoehorned in to support their love-story. Honestly playing fast and loose with a lot of canon as should be clear by now.  
3\. 90% sure this will be an Elejah main pairing, but giving myself another chapter to decide. Feel free to argue for your favorite pairings for other characters provided it won't break your heart if I don't pick them.


	3. Chapter 3

Kelly Donovan was dead. She'd wandered back into town to check on her abandoned children and someone had broken into Vicky's hospital room and killed her mother while she was passed out next to her daughter in the bed. The police seemed to think it was a mistake, someone trying to kill Vicky, cover up whatever she saw.

Elena was pretty sure they were right.

Somewhere, in the back of Elena's mind, Katerina was laughing at her. Vampires could do whatever the fuck they wanted and always would, until someone strong and lucky enough came along and killed them. No one knew that better than the Petrova doppelgangers, from both sides of the equation.

If she was going to keep her loved ones alive, she needed help.

"I think, I think I dreamed it," Bonnie told her in a harsh whisper while Caroline was in the shower. "The hospital and these eyes, real blue, and a crow. But that doesn't make any sense, right?"

Elena wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "We should talk to your Grams."

"What? Why?" Bonnie asked her, forehead wrinkled in a deep frown at Elena's apparent nonsequitur.

"She's the one who told you about your family, your abilities, right? Maybe she can help you focus them, understand what you're seeing." Elena bit her lip, guilt at her manipulation roiling in her stomach. She reached out and took Bonnie's hands. "Something's happening Bonnie, something scary. And I don't want anyone else to die."

Bonnie stared at her, shocked and more than a little scared herself, and then nodded. "Okay, let's go talk to Grams."

"Field trip?" Caroline asked, coming out of the bathroom in a robe, toweling her hair. "I was promised Elena's famous pancakes and I definitely need fortification if we're going to learn that Bonnie has superpowers and I don't."

"Pancakes it is," Elena agreed. This conversation wasn't likely to be fun for anyone and breakfast food could make most things more bearable.

Elena turned on her favorite playlist, an eclectic range of music that reminded her of lives long gone and lives she hoped to live, and let the music and her friends' chatter wash over her as she cooked. She had a variety of recipes that had earned her famous pancakes reputation, but her favorite had cinnamon and pecans in the mix and a special syrup made with apples and cinnamon flavored whiskey.

Not enough alcohol to have an effect on them, at least not the way she made it that morning, but a little bite to their breakfast would give her the fortitude to get through an honest conversation with Sheila Bennett.

That, or the three cups of very strong coffee she made from Elizabeth Forbes' excellent french press.

She grimaced down at the bowl she was making syrup in. She needed to tell them the truth. Not everything, but, they deserved to know about her own magic. She was pretty sure Sheila already knew, had caught the older woman watching her sharply, and it wouldn't be practical to keep it secret when they learned the truth about Bonnie. But they were going to be upset and angry that she hadn't told them before and she couldn't blame them. And Caroline, Caroline didn't understand how amazing she was, how much she shined without any help whatsoever, and being the only one of them to not have magic was only going to make her feel less special.

Sometimes Elena thought she should have left town as soon as she was old enough to travel unnoticed, taken her destiny and all the danger that went with it away from her loved ones. Most of the time she believed that to be a cowardly choice, that it wouldn't protect them, just leave them more ignorant and unprepared for any supernatural incursion into their lives. She was hardly the only reason a vampire might come to Mystic Falls, given its history.

It had been a largely theoretical argument with herself until now. Until vampires were back, until ex's mother's were murdered in the night, until the ghost of a past both hers and not hers was staring at her in history class with hope and heartbreak in his eyes.

She could leave, now. Break so many other hearts. Tear her fragile family further into pieces. She could stay and hide the truth from them, try her best to protect them while preserving what normality remained in their lives. She could tell them and risk them getting involved, risk them _wanting_ her to leave, if they knew what she really was. Less a person than an ingredient. Mystical nutmeg.

Adding another splash of whiskey to the mix, she sighed, mind ringing with the voices of dead women insisting on their personhood and hers.

Elena was only responsible for her own choices. She couldn't control anyone else's, for good or ill. And she was glad of that. She had no idea what she'd do if she had Katerina's compulsion. Would she make Jeremy stop taking pills? Make Matt give up on her? Make fucking Mr. Tanner stop being an abusive asshole to his students? All of those sounded reasonable, good even, healthier and safer for everyone involved. And absolutely monstrous. Arrogant, selfish, and a stepping stone toward manipulating everyone in her life to suit her tastes.

Tempting. Easy to rationalize. Yes, she was very glad that she didn't have Katerina's power.

The spoon clinking against the glass of the bowl snapped her back to the present and she made herself smile as she heard Caroline's voice echoing down the hall, debating appropriately witchy sartorial choices with Bonnie.

"No feathers!" she called out, smile shifting into a more genuine grin. "And pancakes are ready!"

She reached into the oven and pulled out the pan of still warm pancakes, sliding the last one on top of the stack before setting it on a trivet on the table. She added a ladle to the bowl of syrup, and filled a glass with orange juice for herself. Any more coffee and she'd end up showing her magic instead of telling them about it.

They made short work of breakfast, all of the pancakes disappearing into their stressed out, growing teenage bodies. Bonnie drove them to her Grams' house as Elena rehearsed various speeches in her head, explanations that wouldn't hurt them, truths that were safe to tell. She hadn't even settled on an opening line when they arrived.

She followed Bonnie into the house, Caroline on her heels and her stomach tied in knots. This wasn't about her. This was about Bonnie and her discovery of her heritage and Elena needed to chill the fuck out about her own issues.

Sheila welcomed them with a warm, if concerned, smile, and Bonnie waved away offers of breakfast as she tugged her Grams toward the sitting room and down onto the couch next to her. "Grams I need, I need you to tell me what you meant about our ancestors and my powers. Because I think I dreamed what happened to Matt and Vicky's mom and I'm kind of freaking out about it." Bonnie took a breath, shooting Elena a flickering glance. "And I think some kind of monster did it."

Sheila Bennett looked as serious as Elena had ever seen her. The mischievous twinkle in her eyes that so resembled Bonnie when they were drunk and making dares was gone and her lips were pressed tightly together in a forbidding line. Elena could _feel_ the magic in her, strong and wary, enough to make hers shift restlessly beneath her skin.

"Bonnie, I don't think your friends should be here for this," Sheila said firmly, looking at Elena and Caroline sitting opposite them, her gaze lingering on Elena with some sort of silent warning.

"They're my best friends, Grams. Whatever you tell me I'm going to tell them anyways, so they might as well hear it from the horse's mouth."

Elena bit back a laugh and Caroline snorted. Sheila arched an eyebrow at her granddaughter. "Are you calling me a horse, dear?"

Bonnie grinned at her. "Start talking and I'll go back to Grams."

Sheila huffed, but quirked her lips into a reluctant smile. "Very well. You are a witch, Bonnie. A real one, with magic powers. I am a witch. Our family have always been witches."

Bonnie looked torn between shock and disbelief, Caroline even more so. Sheila snapped her fingers and a flame lit in the air above them, bright and hypnotizing before abruptly flaring out.

"Holy shit," Caroline whispered as Bonnie gaped.

"Were, were our ancestors burned in the witch trials?" Bonnie asked, voice trembling a little as she stared at the empty air where the flame had been. Sheila shook her head, taking Bonnie's hands in hers.

"No, the girls that were persecuted in Salem were entirely innocent. You need more than ignorance to trap a real witch. Our family fled Salem in 1692 and resettled here, in Mystic Falls. We've lived in secrecy ever since." She turned a gimlet eye on Elena and Caroline. "It's important that we still do."

Caroline gulped, Elena nodded with absolute sincerity, and Bonnie scoffed. "Come on, Grams, everybody talks about you being a witch."

"And yet you didn't believe it, did you?" Sheila asked her, sharply amused. "It's absurd, can't be true. I'm just a kooky lady that teaches occult at the university. No one really believes."

Bonnie nodded slowly and Sheila sighed. "No one who isn't already a part of the supernatural. Like vampires. A vampire killed Kelly Donovan, I'm sure of it."

"What?!" "Vampires are real?" Bonnie and Caroline exploded at once and Elena winced. A wince that deepened when Sheila turned her sharp gaze toward her.

"Yes, they're real. And they can be fought. But Elena can tell you more about that, can't you Elena?"

Two pairs of shocked eyes turned toward her, confusion and the beginning of betrayal in their depths, and Elena took a deep, fortifying breath. "Your family isn't the only one with secrets, Bonnie. The Gilberts have been vampire hunters for centuries."

Her best friends looked flabbergasted, more shocked than they had been by the sight of Sheila Bennet conjuring fire out of thin air. Caroline broke first, laughing a little. "You're kidding, right? This is some kind of practical joke?"

"No. It's not a joke. And it's not my only secret." She looked at Bonnie. "I'm no you, not nearly as powerful as a Bennett witch, but, I have a little magic of my own. I think it came from my mom's side, because the Gilberts never had magic."

Sheila frowned and Elena wondered if she knew more about Miranda's family. She assumed her mother was Katerina's descendant, because nothing in the Gilbert journals had ever mentioned magic. But it could have been someone who married into the Gilbert line farther back in the family tree. Even with all her memories, all the questions her sisters had asked over the millenia, she didn't really understand what triggered another doppleganger to appear. And she'd never had anyone to ask, until now.

"What kind of magic?" Bonnie asked, just as Caroline burst out with "Show us something cool!" and Elena laughed. Her questions could wait. Reassuring her friends and helping Bonnie learn more about her family was what mattered today.

"Okay, something cool coming up."

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What are some of your favorite moments of Season 1? I'm clearly going off the rails of canon and I'm still working out what to keep, change, and toss.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day the three of them spent at Matt's house, along with a subdued Tyler Lockwood. Matt was refusing to leave Vicky's side at the hospital, and Caroline's mom had police on guard 24/7. Not that they could stop a vampire who wanted in, but Elena hoped it would deter him, whoever he was, from trying.

In the meantime they could help Matt by packing up his mom's things and figuring out what needed to be dealt with for her funeral, and for all the financial and other adult responsibilities that were suddenly his.

Elena felt shitty for thinking it, but she really doubted Vicky would be any help, despite being the oldest sibling. She'd been a mess before all of this, and the trauma of the attack and her mom's death were probably only going to make her drug and emotional issues worse. She would need therapy and a lot of support and Matt was great, but he was also a teenager, and one who had just lost his mom, however crappy of a mom she'd been.

"Hey, Elena, come here and look at this," Tyler called out from the kitchen, interrupting her downward mental spiral. Elena finished folding the shirt she was holding and set it in one of the donation boxes before leaving Bonnie and Caroline to it.

"What'd you find?" she asked, stepping into the kitchen and making a mental note to do the dishes and make sure the fridge was stocked before they left.

"There was one of those crappy hide-a-safes in one of the bottom cabinets. The key was right next to it," he said with an eye roll. "But it had some stuff in it, from when we were all kids. Matt and Vicky's birth certificates, stuff like that. And this," he handed her a stapled sheaf of papers and Elena read the bold lettering across the top.

"Kelly had a life insurance policy?" she asked, honestly shocked at the idea of Matt's mom doing something so responsible.

Tyler shrugged. "I know. But, she wasn't always so bad, when we were little. Anyways, it looks like it's still valid. I could have my dad get his lawyer to look at it? Probably be a lot of help with the hospital bills and everything."

Elena smiled warmly at him, startling an answering smile out of him. "Sounds great, Tyler. I'm glad Matt has you as a friend."

He ducked his head, grimacing a little, and Elena's smile faded. He was her friend, too, even if they both forgot it sometimes.

It had been a long time since they were close though, the two rich founder's kids stuck with each other at boring adult events. They'd split along gendered friendship lines as they got older, and Tyler, without the benefit of ancestral memories to balance him out, had become little more than a privileged asshole who bullied her brother. But there was more to him than that, and she hoped him stepping up to help Matt was a sign he was growing up.

"Bonnie and Caroline have got his mom's stuff covered, why don't we go through the rest of the safe and then start figuring out their bill situation?"

He scratched at the back of his neck, a clear sign of discomfort, but nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good. Or, not good. But, whatever."

Elena laughed, only the faintest edge of bitterness to the sound. "Yeah, not good but whatever is the perfect way to describe all the post-parent death bullshit."

He grimaced again, then met her eyes with a surprisingly soft, if awkward, expression. "Uh, sorry, that I've been kind of a dick. I don't think we've talked at all since your parents…" He trailed off and she huffed out a sharp laugh.

"Died. They died. You can say it. It's not like I've forgotten." He winced and she shook her head. "Yeah. You've been a dick. And way worse to Jeremy than me. Stop that, and we're good. I know you think you need to balance Matt's niceness by being twice the teenage asshole, but I promise, none of us will hold it against you if you keep it to a minimum."

Tyler snorted, giving her a real smile. "Deal. But only if we can drink while we do this. Kelly's favorite crappy beer is in the fridge and pouring it out before Matt and Vicky get home seems like a waste."

"God yes," Elena said, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table and pulling over a stack of envelopes, too many with angry red words stamped on them. "Beer me, Lockwood."

"If there's going to be irresponsible underage drinking, we want in!" Bonnie called from the bedroom and Elena grinned at Tyler as he looked up from the fridge.

"You heard the lady. Let's get this depressing party started."

Hours later, and the bulk of Kelly's belongings that were neither personal mementos, nor of use to Matt and Vicky, had been packed up for donation or thrown away. The bills had been sorted by urgency, with an overview of how much was owed, to who, and how to pay it ready for Matt to look over when he was ready.

Bonnie and Caroline were quite tipsy and were cooing over an album of baby pictures they'd found while Tyler pretended he wasn't interested.

Elena was feeling more than a little tipsy herself, humming a song she couldn't remember the name of as she washed dishes. It was a strangely calm moment, happy almost, and then the phone rang and she screamed a little. Just a little.

"Chill, Gilbert. Just the phone," Tyler said, grinning at her. "You never used to be a jumpy drunk."

She flicked some suds at him. "Answer it, Lockwood. Or I'll make you finish the dishes."

He grumbled, but stood up from the Bonnie/Caroline/Album pile on the floor and answered the wall phone. "Donovan house."

Elena frowned at his bored tone of voice, second-guessing herself for not letting it go to voicemail. She just wanted to lighten Matt's load as much as possible. She knew, intellectually, that what had happened to Vicky and Kelly wasn't her fault. Emotionally it was hard not to blame herself, when the only vampire she knew for sure was in town was definitely there because she and her destined face existed.

"Elena," Tyler hissed at her and she almost dropped a plate. Fuck. She really was a jumpy drunk right now.

"What? Who is it?"

"He says he's Matt and Vicky's dad," he told her, eyes wide with shock, holding his hand over the receiver. "I don't. I don't know what to tell him. He said he got a call from Caroline's mom?"

She gaped at him, blinking rapidly. God, their dad? He'd left town before Matt was even born, or just after. She'd never met him and she didn't think Matt had either, at least not old enough to remember, Vicky either. Taking a breath, she summoned as much sobriety as she could and held out her hand for the phone.

Tyler handed it to her with a look of deep relief and Elena held it up to her ear. "Hello, this is your son's friend, Elena Gilbert. I'm sorry to be rude, sir, but why are you calling?"

There was a choked off sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Hi Elena. My name's Peter. I'm calling because I'm coming to Mystic Falls, I'll be there tomorrow, and I wanted to let my children know because I think they've had enough shock in their life lately."

Elena scoffed. "I don't think a phone call's going to help mute this one much."

There was a pause, during which Elena very much regretted the three beers she'd drunk, and then a deep sigh. "No, it's not. I know I've been a terrible parent. I haven't been a parent at all. But legally I have custody now and while they might not want me, I'm going to do my best to be there for them now."

Something like tears was burning in the back of Elena's throat, the desire to shout at this man for daring to think he had a right to be a parent now warring with the hope that this could be good for Matt and Vicky. "I'll let Matt know you're coming," she said quietly. "I don't know how much the Sheriff told you, but he's staying with Vicky at the hospital right now. They'll both still be there tomorrow."

"Thank you, Elena. I'm glad my son has such good friends."

"You'd better be good for him. For both of them. Because they do have good friends, a lot of them," she told him, voice as cold and threatening as Katerina at her best.

"I look forward to meeting them. Goodbye, Elena."

Elena hung up without responding and then met Tyler, Caroline, and Bonnie's astonished stares. "So Matt and Vicky's dad will be here tomorrow. Apparently he still exists and has custody now."

"You're fucking terrifying, Elena," Tyler told her. "Damn."

"Yeah she is," Caroline said, grinning widely.

Bonnie was the one to bring up the pertinent point. "We have to tell Matt. And we should not be drunk when we do it."

"Yeah. Okay, the depressing party is officially over. It's time for coffee," Elena said, clapping her hands together. "Also, Caroline, please yell at your mom for me for not warning Matt, or any of us, that she was calling their dad."

"Yes ma'am, with pleasure," Caroline said, giving her a flashy salute.

Elena returned to the sink as Tyler moved to the coffee pot—might as well finish the dishes while she sobered up. Staring at the water as it ran over her hands, Elena wondered when adults stopped feeling like a resource, a safe place to turn to. Sometimes she wondered if they'd ever felt like that.

Too early she'd known there were things she couldn't tell her parents, things it wasn't safe for anyone to know. She loved Jenna, and was very grateful for everything her aunt had done for her and Jeremy. But she couldn't bring her into vampires and destiny and death that wasn't a tragic accident. She was still barely an adult herself, trying to finish college and be a good guardian to two fucked up, grieving teenagers.

Sheila was probably the closest to someone she could trust outside of Bonnie and Caroline. She needed to talk to her. About doppelgangers and curses and if fate had a say or she'd just been really fucking unlucky. About how to keep her friends safe, from this threat and any others that showed up.

Good or bad, safe or not, they'd lost enough parents this year. Mystic Falls didn't need any more orphans.

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1\. So I haven't seen the show in ages, and never got past the part where Bonnie and Damon were in the prison world and Alaric was some sort of super vampire. God that season was weird. Anyways, do they ever address how/why Damon is able to do the fog and crow thing? Cause early on it seemed like vampires had more magic stuff going on, with that and the dream entry, but I feel like that went away really quick and they never brought it up again.

2\. If you have suggestions for the playlist Elena mentioned last chapter, I'm working on a doppelganger inspired one to share with y'all and would love to hear what songs make you think of various doppelgangers or the whole doppelganger myth.

3\. I will, apparently, never stop misspelling doppelganger as doppleganger. Drives me bonkers.


	5. Chapter 5

The arrow thunked into the target, just inside the smallest of the three rings. Bonnie whooped and Elena clapped as Caroline turned to face them, flushed with success.

"I am officially a badass," the blonde said with a wide grin. "Think I could be, like, sexy Robin Hood for Halloween this year?"

"The sexiest Robin Hood," Elena agreed, grinning back at her. Caroline had picked things up faster than Elena had, when teaching herself years ago, or Bonnie, who was focused more on honing her magic and lacked their friend's natural athleticism. Caroline's years of cheerleading and gymnastics, combined with her innate drive to succeed at all costs, meant that she was going to surpass her teacher before too long.

"Perfect. We can do a whole folklore theme? Bonnie, you'd be an awesome Morgana, or Lady of the Lake? And Elena could be Van Helsing, vampire hunting badass."

Bonnie's eyes lit up, clearly already thinking of ideas, and Elena nodded. "I bet there's some Gilbert heirlooms I could use for a really authentic costume." And maybe dressing as a vampire hunter would clue one particular vampire in to her lack of desire to date him.

Caroline handed the bow to Elena. "Awesome! I have to get to practice and corral the girls into being as good at cheering as I am at being a badass archer and costume planner," she said, bright and peppy with a bloodthirsty grin. "Elena, I understand you're bowing out of cheerleading this year, but Bonnie, my darling friend, _you_ are not exempt."

Bonnie shrugged, smile dimming into something less than enthusiastic, and Caroline went in for the kill. "Besides, I heard Stefan, our lovelorn little vampire, has joined the football team for some reason, and, my badassery aside, you wouldn't want to leave me without any backup, would you?"

Their friend huffed, and reluctantly nodded. "Fine. But you are not making me the top of the tower just because I'm 'tiny', got it?"

"Deal," Caroline told her, then winked at Elena as she slung an arm around Bonnie's shoulders and steered her toward the gate out of Elena's backyard. "How do you feel about flaming batons?"

"What?!" Bonnie's horrified exclamation echoed back toward Elena and she giggled, closing her eyes and letting the sun sink into her skin for a moment. She loved her friends so much, and she was so deeply grateful that they were still here, in her life, eagerly learning even the scary, impossible parts of it. She couldn't do any of it without them.

It broke her heart, sometimes, to think of how alone Katerina had been. Oh she was often surrounded by people, had a knack for acquiring allies despite her almost equally strong knack for betraying them in the name of her own survival. But friends? People she trusted with her heart and her life? Those she did not have. Had not had, since her babe was ripped from her arms.

Elena knew her doppelganger had done terrible things. Had seen them in her dreams, so much blood spilled. But she also knew her hurts, her fear, all of the people and potential lives she'd lost. Katerina was desperately lonely and she couldn't even admit it to herself.

So many of them were, in the end. Loved and wanted only for their faces, and not their selves. But Katerina was the only one still here. The only one like herself that Elena could actually meet, have a conversation with that would be new and real and not dead memories floating around her psyche. Of course, Katerina might just kill her, or give her to the monster who wanted Katerina's blood. But that didn't stop Elena from wondering, from hoping, that maybe she could ease some of that terrible isolation. For both of them.

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath, then went to the target and pulled out the arrows still stuck in the wood. She collected the ones that had missed entirely, and took them and the bow back inside, hiding them in her room. Their experiments in archery weren't a secret, but she preferred to keep actual weapons out of reach of her brother until she was confident in his sobriety. For now, she hoped it would work as motivation. He could join them if he convinced her he was done with pills.

Jenna had given her free use of her car, but Elena still wasn't comfortable driving, especially alone. So she jogged to Sheila Bennett's house—without cheerleading, she needed to keep up her fitness on her own.

Sheila ushered her in with a crooked smile, leading her to the living room and offering her ice-cold sweet tea before settling into the chair across from Elena and asking the pertinent question.

"Elena Gilbert, what brings you to my living room with such a long face?"

Elena just looked at Sheila, at Grams, for a moment, remembering every sleepover spent at her house. She'd had the best stories, never begrudged their shenanigans, and her homemade chocolate-covered peppermints were to die for. She'd been kind to all of them, not just Bonnie, but Elena knew the value of family, and knew how little of it Bonnie had. She'd been half an orphan long before Elena lost her parents, and now that she knew the truth, she needed her Grams more than ever.

"I, I don't want to take advantage of you, I know Bonnie is your priority and she needs you. But I'm hoping that either you know something about my family I don't, or that you can help me do a bloodline spell." Elena stopped and frowned, leaning back in her chair. Here she was, discussing her biggest secret for the first time in her life, as if it was nothing. And maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't a secret at all.

"Do you know that I'm a doppelganger?"

Sheila's eyebrows arched upwards, her head tilting to the side as she studied Elena. "I didn't expect you to know that. Your parents certainly didn't, as far as I could tell."

Elena's lips twisted. "I don't think so, but then, they never told me the truth about the Gilberts', so I don't actually know for sure." She tilted her head right back at Sheila. "Is it obvious, to a witch? Or just to a Bennett witch."

Sheila smiled, slow and sure, though there was a wariness in her eyes that Elena hadn't seen before. "A Bennett witch. If your parents told you nothing, Elena, how _do_ you know so much about your family, and mine?"

"I remember them," she told the older woman, watching her eyes widen at every new word she spoke. "All of them. Not, everything. It comes in pieces, and without context I don't always understand them. But I remember enough. Enough to know all about the Gilberts and the Bennetts and their history in this town."

Elena leaned forward, utterly sincere, offering truth and trust. "But I don't know _how_ a Gilbert had a Petrova doppelganger for a daughter. And I'm hoping you can help me find out. I don't want to repeat my ancestors' mistakes, or cruelties." She grimaced. "Petrova, _or_ Gilbert. I will not use Bonnie like Katherine and Jonathan used Emily. I promise."

Bonnie's grandmother studied her in silence, the weight of her regard heavier than the weight of her magic, filling the room like air. "You have been a good friend to my Bonnie, Elena. I will help you with a bloodline spell as I have no idea which of your parents carries Petrova blood. And _you_ will keep my granddaughter safe from whatever chaos your face brings to town."

"I promise," Elena vowed, and meant it with all her heart.

Sheila grinned, as mischievous as her granddaughter ever was, and the atmosphere of the room lightened at once. "Well then, let's figure out some Gilbert family secrets."

The other woman was far more experienced and skilled in magic, and she quickly gathered the needed components for the spell. Elena bled into a goblet, a small cut on the side of her hand, where it would least be irritated by touching things. Sheila added bayleaf, dandelion, and some shavings of hawthorne. "Wisdom, divination, and the blessings of your ancestors," she told Elena with each addition.

Delight bubbled behind Elena's answering smile, entirely separate from her determination to learn the truth of her origins. This was her first time doing magic with someone. First time learning from someone not long dead. Her life had been a secret for so long, so much of who she was hidden from everyone, and now it wasn't. Bonnie and Caroline knew some of it, Sheila even more. As terrifying and awful as vampires coming to town again had been, part of her was grateful for all that had happened since she'd seen Stefan's face in the halls of the high school.

Sheila broke her of her reverie by taking her hands, the goblet framed between them. Sheila whispered, words, not in English, that Elena couldn't quite make out. The liquid in the goblet caught flame, not red, but golden, heavy with the scent of copper. Sheila's eyes flicked to the side and a sheet of paper lifted from the table, dancing in the air until it hovered over the plume of smoke. Words appeared, indecipherable smudges of ash that gradually clarified under the force of Sheila's magic and Elena's blood.

Her hand was released with a suddenness that startled Elena, and the older woman plucked the page from the air before it could fall as the flames winked out. Sheila handed the paper to her without looking at the names, leaving it to her to share or not.

Elena looked down, almost against her will, and felt all her joy sink like a stone in her stomach.

_**Isobel Flemming and John Gilbert**_


End file.
